In an interview with Fox Business Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen indicated that Flash 10.1 should be released sometime in the second half of 2010. Adobe is still on track to ship the runtime libraries in the first half of the year. Narayen said:
“We have a number of excited partners who are working aggressively with us to bring Flash to their devices, whether they be smartphones as well as handsets, and so companies like Google or RIM or Palm are going to be releasing versions of Flash on smartphones and tablets in the second half of the year.”
Flash 10.1 will also have some hefty hardware requirements. Despite Adobe’s plans to offer Flash 10.1 on BlackBerry, webOS and Android devices, many current devices could be left out due to insufficient hardware. For example, Android devices will require an ARM Cortex-A8 or better processor, leaving only devices like the Google Nexus One and Motorola DROID as capable of supporting Flash 10.1.
Could Adobe Flash be headed into irrelevance?